The inability of Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley Lennon, to shy away from trouble has surfaced once more during another incident that happened outside court precints that he was supposed to be avoiding. This time, the alleged free speech campaigner, that's free speech for him, but not for Muslims, in which he demonises an entire religion time and time again, visited a court in Leeds, where he fell foul of the law again, for allegedly breaching the peace outside a court during an ongoing grooming trial.The far right extremist had showed men entering Leeds Crown Court in a livestream on Facebook, where he claimed to be " reporting" on the case.
After more than an hour of broadcasting, footage showed police officers approaching to arrest him for alleged breach of the peace and incitement."Can you get me a solicitor?" he pleaded with his supporters at the time, "This is ridiculous, I haven't said a word... I've done nothing.
But Robinson was already under a suspended sentence for committing contempt of court regarding a gang rape case heard in Canterbury last year. The judge handed him three months imprisonment in May last year suspending it for 18 months on the proviso he did not commit further offences.
Regarding the recent incident, Robinson spoke of his freedom of speech, but the judge told Robinson, it is about justice and ensuring that a trial can be carried out jutly and fairly, it's about being innocent until proven guilty, Judge Norton, said " There are notices all over the court buildings making it clear that filming or taking photographs is an offence and may be a contempr of court."
Judge Norton went on "This is not about freedom of speech or the freedom of the press. This is not about legitimate journalism or political correctness. It's about justice and ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly, and ensuring a jury is not in anyway inhibited in carrying out its important function.It appears that Robinson was given a thirteen month sentence for contempt of court and taken to Hull prison.
This saw scenes in Whitehall in central London yesterday, where several hundred of his supporters held a short rally and protest, Some sat in the road, among them, UKIP,For Britain members and fascists from the National Front and Britain First. They had earlier heard from one organiser who insultingly read out Pastor Niemoller's. "First they came..." poem, written about the Nazis rise to power in the 1930's. The fascists there mocked the poem being read out. Another speaker, thought to be from UKIP said Robinson was the new "Nelson Mandela" for goodness sake
The fact remains that Robinson's racism and trouble making activities has long been evident from his days in the BNP to his founding of the the English Defence League (EDL) in 2009, at its height under his leadership the EDL ventured from town to to town across the UK,leaving a trail of destruction and division in its wake. In 2012, it was revealed that policing costs for its demonstrations had risen to over 310m during four years, with violence being commonplace. He then went to to work with the Quilliam Foundation,he also established Pegida UK an anti-Islam organisation, named after the ultra right German group Pegida. Robinson had previously broadcast his activities on Twitter as well as on Facebook, but was permanently banned from the platform earlier this year.
He also has a long list of criminal convictions for violence and has been arrested many times during demonstrations and at fights between football fans, and imprisoned for entering the U.S, illegally in 2012, as well as being jailed for mortgage fraud in 2014.
In June 2015, he met with other far-right activists , including Anne Marie Waters of Sharia Watch UK, Alan Avling, a former funder of the English Defence League and Jim Dowson, formerly leader of Britain First. The group planned to host an exhibition of Mohammed cartoon exhibitions in September that year, and according to Dowson, they hoped to spark a civil war.
He later. became a correspondent for Canadian right wing website Rebel Media and his posts and emails were said to have radicalised the Finsbury attacker Darren Osborne, rather than take stock and toning down his hysteria, Robinson has doubled up and played the victim. The far right have nothing . if not a serious persecution complex, and this gives them something to unite around, to them Tommy Robinson is seen as their hero, their poster boy, who they see as a defender of the truth, a warrior for justice. Robinson meanwhile is currently cavorting with the racist and extreme ethno-nationalist Generation Identity movement whose leaders have been prevented from entering the UK, Robinson promotes and shares their videos frequently. A number of ex-National Action neo Nazis have recently been identified as new members of this group. There is clearly a porous boundary between new far right groups like this one and other neo-Nazi and extreme right groups.
A 2017 report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue entitled The Fringe Insurgency, explains that far-right groups around the world are increasingly collaborating to achieve common goals, such as keeping refugees out of Europe, removing hate speech laws and getting far-right politicians to power. This is despite often stark differences in their publicly stated ideologies and public image.The report states that although different groups' communications are tailored to different audiences and highlights topics ranging from white nationalist activism to freedom of speech protection, this has worked to increase the profile of all groups feeding off each other as they seek to drum up intolerance, fuel grievances, foster division, using social media as their critical tool.
Robinson is trying to reinvent himself as a journalist, which he is not in anyway, who thinks this will give him immunity in his never ending quest to spread hate and lies. Under the pretext of freedom of speech , what he does is spread racism, islamphobia and foster division, many consider him a mere attention seeker, but he is a dangerous provocateur, rabble rouser who uses every opportunity to spread his inflammotary anti-muslim messages, while offering no competent solutions to the issues he raises. His freedom of speech is not free if it oppresses others.He essentially spreads hate as he calls Islam evil, blaming a whole religion for most wrongs in society. A child growing up hearing that another religion is wrong, hearing another religion follows a hateful doctrine , hearing that they support a religion which preaches unspeakable acts, will likely to grow up to hate that religion too.
The dangers of Tommy Robinsons hardcore politics, being propagated on.a wide scale, by his friends on the internet, and allied with racist street movements must not be underestimated. Robinson is every bit as worthy of our contempt as the Islamist fundamentalists he claims to oppose, and needs to be treated as such.
